A bitter wind was sweeping the Commercial Road, Whitechapel, as the two
detectives, each well muffled up, descended from their cab and walked
briskly eastwards. Save for a slouching wayfarer or two, shambling
unsteadily along, and little groups gathered about the all-night
coffee-stalls, the roads were deserted. Neither man had attempted any
disguise. It was not necessary now.
As they turned into Grave Street they automatically walked in the centre
of the roadway. There are some places where it is not healthy to walk at
night on shadowed pavements. They moved without haste and without
loitering, as men who know exactly what they have to do. From one of the
darkened houses a woman's shrill scream issued full of rage and terror.
It was followed by a man's loud, angry tones, the thud of blows,
shrieks, curses, and brutal laughter. Then the silence dropped over
everything again. The two men had apparently paid no heed. Even had they
been inclined to play the part of knights-errant in what was not an
uncommon episode in Grave Street, they knew that the woman who had been
chastised would probably have been the first to turn on them.
There was a side entrance to 404A, which was the newspaper shop that
Foyle had cause to remember. He struck the grimy panel sharply with his
fist and waited. There was no reply. Again he knocked, and Green,
unbuttoning his greatcoat, flung it off and laid it across his arm. He
could drop it easily in case of an emergency. Still there was no answer
to the knock.
"Luckily I swore out a search warrant," muttered Foyle, and searched in
his own pockets for something. It was a jemmy of finely tempered steel
gracefully curved at one end. He inserted it in a crevice of the door
and, leaning his weight upon it, obtained an irresistible leverage.
There was a slight crack, and it swung inwards as the screws of the hasp
drew. The two men stepped within and, closing the door, stood absolutely
still for a matter of ten minutes. Not a sound betrayed that their
burglarious entry had alarmed any one.
Presently Green made a movement, and a vivid shaft of light from a
pocket electric lamp played along the narrow uncarpeted passage. The
superintendent gripped his jemmy tightly and turned towards the dirty
stairs. Then the light vanished as quickly as it had flared up, and from
above there came a sound of shuffling footsteps. Even Heldon Foyle, whom
no one would have accused of nervousness, felt his heart beat a trifle
more quickly. He knew that if he were as near the heart of the mystery
as he believed any second might see shooting. Penned as he and his
companion were in the narrow space of the passage barely three feet
wide, a shot fired from above could scarcely miss.
Crouching low, he sprang up the narrow staircase in three bounds, making
scarcely a sound. On the landing above he wound his arms tightly about
the person whose movements he had heard and whispered a quick, tense
command.
"Not a word, or it will be the worse for you. Let's have a light,
Green."
The prisoner kept very still, and Green flashed a light on his face. It
was that of a man of forty or so, with pronounced Hebrew features. His
greasy black hair was tangled in coarse curls, and a smooth black
moustache ran across his upper lip. A pair of shifty eyes were fixed
fearfully on Foyle, and the man murmured something in a guttural tongue.
"We are police officers. How many people are there in this house?"
demanded Foyle sternly, in a low voice. "You may as well answer in
English. Quietly, now."
He had released his hold round the Jew's waist, but stood with the jemmy
dangling by his side and with ears cocked ready for any sound. Green had
climbed the stairs and stood by his side.
Domiciliary visits are unfrequent in England, but the Jew was not
certain enough to stand upon a legal technicality. As a matter of fact,
the search warrant would have met the difficulty. He cringed before the
two men, whose faces he could not see, for Green had thrown his wedge of
light so that it showed up the man's sallow face and left all else in
darkness.
"I do not know why you have come," he answered, forming each word
precisely. "I have done nothing wrong. I am an honest newsagent. There
is only my wife, daughter, son, lodger in house."
"You are a receiver of stolen goods," answered Foyle, something, it must
be confessed, at a venture. "Don't trouble to deny it, Mr. Israels.
We're not after you this time--not if you treat us fairly. What about
this lodger of yours? Have you bought him a typewriter lately?"
"Yes--yes. I help you all I can," protested the Jew, with an eagerness
that deceived neither of the detectives. There is no class of liar so
abysmal as the East-end criminal Jew. They will hold to a glib falsehood
with a temerity that nothing can shake. If there is no necessity to lie,
they lie--for practice, it is to be presumed. The best way to extract a
truth is to make a direct assertion by the light of apparent knowledge
and so sometimes obtain assent. Foyle knew the idiosyncrasies of the
breed. Hence the threat in his demand.
"I bought a typewriter--yes," went on Israels. "I think he was honest.
Didn't seem as though police after him."
"Which room is he in?"
Israels jerked a thumb upwards. "Next landing. Door on left," he
ejaculated nervously.
The superintendent pushed by the man. He knew that the critical moment
had come. With his quick judgment of men he had summed up Mr. Israels.
Whatever the Jew's morals, it was evident that he had a wholesome
respect for his own oily skin. He would not risk himself to save the
neck of another man. Foyle's intentions were simple. He would steal
quietly up the second flight of stairs, burst the door open if it were
locked, and seize the man he was in search of in his sleep. But his
plans were frustrated.
He had not taken two steps when a woman peeped from an adjoining room.
He caught one glimpse of her in the semi-darkness with a police whistle
at her lips. He sprang forward, and as he did so a shrill, ear-piercing
blast rang out. Green was close behind him.
She shrieked as the detective tore the whistle from her, and he felt her
slender figure entwine itself about him. Down he went, with his
companion on top of him, and another woman's loud hysterical cries added
to the pandemonium. Foyle picked himself up and, lifting the girl
bodily, flung her without ceremony into the room from which she had
emerged. From above a voice shouted something, and a knife whizzed
downwards and struck quivering in the bare boards of the landing,
grazing Green's shoulders.
All need for caution was gone now. Foyle had dropped his jemmy and his
hand closed over his pistol. Only as a last resource would he use it,
but if he had to--well, there could be no harm in having it handy. A
door slammed as the two detectives climbed the second flight of stairs.
Green flung himself against the one that had been indicated by Israels,
and the flimsy fastening gave way under the shock of his thirteen stone.
There was no one in the room. Savagely Heldon Foyle turned and caught
the handle of a second door. It turned, and they entered the room, empty
like the first, but with an open window looking out on a series of low
roofs a dozen feet below. And over the roofs a shadowy figure of a man
was clambering hurriedly. He could only dimly be seen.
Green clambered through on to the window-sill and dropped. He was
unlucky. A projecting piece of wood caught his foot, and he staggered
and lost time. Before he had recovered himself the fugitive was out of
sight, and the sound of his progress had ceased. Foyle called to him to
come back and, without waiting to see whether his orders were obeyed,
made his way back again to the first-floor landing. Israels was still
there, very white and shaky, as the superintendent struck a match.
"Where's that girl?" said the detective curtly. "The one who gave the
alarm."
"My daughter? She thought you were burglars. She didn't know."
"Where is she?"
Without waiting for a reply he entered the room whence she had emerged
and, striking another match, applied it to a gas-bracket. A fat woman
was sitting up in bed looking at him timorously. He paid no heed to her,
but stooped to look under the bed. When he straightened himself Green
had rejoined him.
"The girl gave us away," exclaimed Foyle. "Here, you, where is she
gone?" He shook the woman roughly by the shoulder. "Go to the bottom of
the stairs, Green, and see that no one slips in or out. Take that chap
outside down with you."
"My daughter?" exclaimed the woman helplessly. "She has gone to stay
with her aunt. We are respectable people. You frightened her. We don't
like the police coming here."
"Highly respectable," repeated Foyle under his breath. Aloud he said
menacingly, "We shall soon know whether you are respectable. Where does
the girl's aunt live?"
"Twenty-two Shadwell Lane," was the reply, glib and prompt.
Foyle looked for an instant penetratingly at her. Her eyes dropped. His
hand went to his pocket and he calmly lighted a cigar. Then he went
downstairs to where Green was on guard and politely apologised to
Israels. Casually he repeated the question he had put to the woman. Yes,
the Jew had seen his daughter go out. She said she was going to her
aunt. Her aunt lived at 48 Sussex Street.
"I see," said the superintendent quietly. "The fact is, of course, that
she is not your daughter, and that she has not gone to her aunt's. You
are in an awkward corner, my man," he went on, changing his tone and
moving a step nearer. "Better tell us the truth. Your wife has let me
know something."
As if mechanically, he was dangling a pair of shiny steel handcuffs in
his fingers. Handcuffs seldom formed a part of his equipment, but
to-night he had carried them with him on the off-chance that he might
have to use them. The Jew shrank away, but the sight had proved
effective.
"I'll tell all the truth," he whined, with an outspreading gesture of
his hands. "I've done no wrong. You can't hurt me. She came here a day
or two ago and paid five pounds for a week's lodging. I was to tell any
one who inquired that she was my daughter. She slept with my wife. What
harm was there? I am poor. Five pounds isn't picked up like that every
day. The man came afterwards. He said he was a journalist and asked me
to buy him a typewriting machine. I asked no questions. Why should I?"
His manner was that of a much-injured man. Foyle cut him short now and
again as he rambled on with a question. In half an hour he felt that he
had extracted a fair amount of truth, mingled though it was with cunning
lies. He guessed now that the woman whom he had vaguely seen was she
whose part in the mystery of the house in Grosvenor Gardens had always
been shadowy and vague. She could be none other than Lola Rachael,
little Lola of Vienna, otherwise the Princess Petrovska.